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Public/Private Space
Qui Ha Public/Private Space The dichotomy between public and private space originated from the distinction between public and private in the Western philosophy in the old times (Weintraub,1).1 In a broad sense, the distinction between public and private space can be explained "the sphere of private life ought to be enclosed, and have a finite, or finished, aspect. Public space, by contrast, ought to be an opening outwards” 2(Lefebvre, 147 ). However, as Lefebvre points out, this opposition is only the seeing appearance that we are familiar with. The understanding of the distinction of public/ private space can be fully attained through a close examination of Jugen Habermas’s conception of “public sphere” and Hannah Arendt’s conception of “public realm” According to Habermas, the public sphere emerged in the pre-modern and modern period with the wide expansion of journalism. He argues that “ the bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public.” (Habermas, 26)3 By this, he emphasizes individuals’ participation in communities. In a similar vein, Hannah Arendt’s conception of the “public realm” centers on the visibility of individuals in public places. Arendt asserts, “the space of appearance comes into being wherever men are together in the manner of speak and action, and therefore predates and precedes all formal constitution of the public realm.”4 Like Arendt, Habermas is also concerned with individuals’ opinion and voice in public arena. In this sense, both Habermas’s notion of “public sphere” and Arendt’s notion of “public realm” closely link to democratic citizenship. The public sphere and public space are not the same. As feminist geographer Duncan asserts, “public spaces and public spheres often do not map neatly onto one another” 5(Duncan, 130). However, the dichotomies of public/private space and of public/private sphere/realm have similar gender implication in their division. Female is usually associated with private space, and male is tied with public space. The relationship between gender and space is one of the main concerns of the feminist discourse. From a feminist perspective, this gender implication in the public/private s distinction reveals women’s oppression and subjugation. In many cases, women cannot work outside the home but are locked into a domestic space as a “natural” labor division. When women join a public space, discourse on women often involves threats and dangers. In the field of cinema, historically, women’s film watching practice in theaters in the early twentieth century invoked public worries about women’s morality.6 In a global context, the mobility of women has also been considered a threat. Massey points out “women’s mobility … is restricted, in a thousand ways, from physical violence to being ogled at or made to feel quite simply “out of place”-not by ‘capital’, but by men.”7 Scholar Drummond lists the following authors carefully investigated the concepts of public and private space in relation to gender issues: Pateman, 1983; Duncan, 1996; Sharistanian, 1987; McDowell, 1999; Wilson, 1991; Massey, 1994; Rendell, 1998. 8 The distinction of public/private space has been challenged by the development of urbanization. Zukin (1991)9 and Mitchell (1995)10 both take the street as a space in between private and public space. The dichotomy between public and private space has also faced challenges from scholarship on local specificity. Researching urban space in Vietnam in post-renovation (Doi moi), Durmmon argues that the categories of public and private space in Western thought and academia do not cover the reality of public and private space in Vietnam where this distinction is blurred. 11 My work significantly draws on Weintraub’s works. ---- 1 Weintraub, Jeff. "The theory and politics of the public/private distinction." Public and private in thought and practice: Perspectives on a grand dichotomy 1 (1997). 2 Lefebvre, Henri. The production of space. Vol. 142. Blackwell: Oxford, 1991. 3 Habermas, Jürgen. The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. MIT press, 1991. 4 Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958. Quoted from Hinchman, Lewis P., and Sandra Hinchman, eds. Hannah Arendt: Critical Essays. State University of New York Press, 1994.pp 181-2 5 Duncan, Nancy, ed. BodySpace: Destabilizing geographies of gender and sexuality. Psychology Press, 1996. 6 Miriam, Hansen. "Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film." (1991). 7 Massey, Doreen. A global sense of place. na, 1991. 8 Drummond, Lisa BW. "Street scenes: practices of public and private space in urban Vietnam." Urban Studies 37.12 (2000): 2377-2391. 9 Zukin, Sharon. Landscapes of power: from Detroit to Disney World. Univ of California Press, 1991. 10 Mitchell, Don. "The end of public space? People's park, definitions of the public, and democracy." Annals of the association of american geographers 85.1 (1995): 108-133. 11 Drummond, Lisa BW.